me: "Um... hey, did any of you also see this guy just pop out of nowhere? Or is it just me?"

They confirmed that it wasn't just me, and the guy had changed into an Indian or Middle-Eastern woman.

me: "Well, I dunno what you mean by breakthrough. Seems like the same old thing to me. I'm still able to do this lucid dream thing better than people who publish books on it the subject. Why is that?"

woman: "Yes it has been that way, but now things will change."

There was a somewhat abrupt awakening, but I was able to come back to the house where I had been. I got caught and stuck in a rose bush outside...and became tangled in it. Frustrated I decided to do something more novel than physical-world-style-walking...so I just sort of willed myself to fly through objects and walls. I'd use them as guides sometimes, such as to pull myself along a fence.

When I got back into the house there was a different couple.

me: "Hi, I'm back..."

woman: "Not you again! We need rest, we can't keep talking all the time!"

me: "Can't you send me to talk to someone else, then?"

My point of view shifted to reading a book that seemed to have Arabic names in it. There was a tale of me going on a journey, and the scene shifted to someplace called "The Platinum Bar". It was full of people sitting at long dark picnic tables, arranged in rows. I believe there were fireplaces also.

I went through a usual barrage of 'how did I get here', 'what is this', etc. Most of the people at the picnic table I was talking to were ignoring me, but the man and an old woman sitting at the end listened.

old woman: "All that finding the answers will do is take everything from you. It took everything from me."

me: "This shouldn't be your decision. And what is this exactly you think can 'be taken away from me'? I've always been more interested in the way things work than immersively enjoying some illusion. Even as a kid I'd rather know how a video game is implemented than play it."

There was some bizarre thing where I began to raise up in the air and fly, and I grabbed ahold of two large pieces of styrofoam that were like wings. One wing crumbled as I was high in the air and I gripped the other one tightly.

The landscape was urban but clean. It seemed there were several stadiums, monorails, and green fields interspersed. One of the most striking features were what looked like giant swimming pools which were animating words and phrases on them--it looked a bit like the effect you get when people in stadiums hold up colored cards to create pictures:

The things that were being drawn out seemed to be advertisements. A common feature was that pixels or regions of it seemed to be like silver liquid, a reflective sort of mercury look. There were ads for "microsoft secure trusted platform solutions", one that said simply "w37", and another that said "What is D?"

me: (out loud, to no one in particular) "Oh. D. I see, you're asking about the language. That's the sequel to C++."

voice: "It's rhetorical, not a real question. That's an ad for C compilers that have been specifically designed to use as the foundation for making D compilers."

me: "Oh, sorry. What is all this?"

voice: "This is the aerial view of our city. Things have come a long way."

me: "It's pretty but, with all these ads for computer stuff; is it supposed to be San Francisco? Do you have a concept of time, or what year it is? How this all relates you to me?"

I'd landed in a courtyard with some kind of gazebo. A thin, attractive woman wearing a loose short dress was apparently the one who had been speaking.

woman: "Relative to you, the relationship is that you are a franchise...contained inside one of the systems that I own."

me: "So under pertinent laws I'm technically your property?"

woman: "Legally speaking."

me: "Hmmph. Do you believe in God?"

woman: "I do. Most of the time."

There were flowers around that she seemed to be organizing, it was as if we were in a greenhouse. I picked up a large purple one.

me: "Oh. By the way. Did I need to remember that w37 or whatever?"

woman: "No... not in particular. I don't think it's important."

me: "Can you read my journal."

woman: "Yes. Well, usually I'm able to but June 5th and 6th are kind of a special occasion. Some of the systems are used for other purposes."

me: "Can you post to it?"

woman: "No, that isn't possible."

As we talked I'd been crushing the large flower in my hand. There was a sort of sweet-smelling nectar that came out of it. Since I was close to her, I put the flower petals and nectar some on her arm and neck and began to lick it off. She didn't seem to mind.

woman: "Elton John always used to really enjoy..."

She trailed off as she became worried about some news on a screen. It was about some movie producer who was torturing their crew, or something along those lines. One portion showed several of the movies they were making...there was a version of Frankenstein and several of the props that were being built. I became somewhat immersed into the world of the screen with the Frankenstein imagery and woke up.

Note
I don't really listen to Elton John or follow his music, so I'm surprised to see another mention of him in a dream context like this. The previous instance was in rather otherwise memorable dream The Cat, not the Cat Study.

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The accounts written here are as true as I can manage. While the
words are my own, they are not independent creative works of fiction
—in any intentional way. Thus I do not consider the material to
be protected by anything, other than that you'd have to be
crazy to want to try and use it for genuine purposes (much less
disingenuous ones!) But who's to say?